Fishing yesterday with Aaron, slam

Yesterday I fished with Aaron Snell. Aaron and I have fished with company a fair amount this year, and it’s been a while since we had an opportunity to fish together as a pair.
We started early, at 5:30, hoping to take a look in some shallow water for tailing permit. The cloud cover was dense, and as such the search for tailing permit was about the only thing that we could see well enough to try. Our first two stops had too much water for us to see tails (though I did see a tarpon tail from a passing school over the flat at our second, a good way to get my heart rate up). As the sun climbed higher into the clouds we found some water shallow enough for the flags to fly. In short order we took a number of casts at tails, and one of them that we thought to be short was nearly attacked as I picked it up to re-cast, but we weren’t able to get the grab through the heaviest of our fishing. We continued down the edge and had a few fish blow out from us before we could see them, frustrating us more. Towards the end of the bar, I saw a small tip of a tail pop up. I threw the fly, the fish swam over and ate it, and we were off to the races. As a bonus, the little fish took a flying leap (!) to make it even cooler. We caught the fish, and were quite pleased. Aaron took some pictures:

As soon as this happened, I casually mentioned to Aaron that this was an early advantage if we were looking for a slam–we finished the edge we were on and looked on another briefly before tying on a bonefish fly and searching for them. I had a few shots at singles before a school showed up swimming away from us–not the greatest angle for a cast, but the wind carried the fly over their backs and a fish decided to volunteer as I retrieved the shrimp fly. We took some pictures before taking a lunch break and putting forth the effort for a tarpon:

After a brief run, Aaron had us in a backcountry basin that provided a shot but didn’t hold a lot of fish. We moved quickly to the ocean, and within ten minutes were tight to the end of a slam. The fish ate the fly three times before he finally found the hook, but it was seated well enough for the fish to be brought to hand for a respectful in-the-water release:

I’d like to thank Captain Aaron Snell for a great day on the water, and my second slam down here. Tomorrow I’m gone to parts wedding (devoid of tarpon, though Dave Skok tells me there may be some carpportunities…any news will be reported here). The next day I fish is the 26 with Captain Justin Rea and Dave Dalu, on the 26. the 28 I’m joining Adm Tondu for a day with Bruce Chard, and then I have some days with Joe Rodriguez before the Del Brown that I’m fishing with Aaron.

regards,

ncl